UNTEL

COMPLÉMENTS D'INFORMATIONS [LA BOÎTE UNTEL]

Description

Numbered and signed copy

Happenings and joyful provocation are words that would quickly summarize UNTEL’s actions. But what does this anonymous appellation refer to? (UNTEL is a French word that can’t be translated into English, it means something like «unnamed, unidentified».) Who are those people that can’t be named?

UNTEL is a group of artists consisting originally of three French artists, Jean-Paul Albinet, Philippe Cazal and Alain Snyers. During its short but passionate existence, from 1975 to 1980, the group has led numerous actions in the public space. The common denominator of the group’s actions is the examination of the day-to-day life, a social and political questioning, very close to the revolutionary ideas of May 1968 and situationism.

The propinquity of UNTEL’s creation process with this idea of experience has led Ben Vautier to included UNTEL in the program of La Maison du Doute in Blois, France, in the spring of 2013. This way, he historically designated UNTEL as post-Fluxus. The idea of an art that first and foremost has to be experienced and lived, seems indeed in line with UNTEL’s considerations.

Furthermore, the group leads his actions as if they are investigations, inspired by the day-to- day life, and exposes the banality and the insignificance of our every-day life together with our contradictions and alienations. In order to express their ideas, UNTEL uses all possible supports and techniques they have access to: photography, film, sound, environments, gesture, corporal actions, objects, etc. In order to be able to preserve their interventions, they systematically have to document them. The photo or film archive created during UNTEL’s existence, offers a rich documentation that helps us recall their adventures, as concretely as necessary to understand their work. Therefore, UNTEL’s work can be considered through their video, photo or sound archive, as well as through the “accessories” they imagined and produced in order to activate their urban adventures in the most relevant way.

Complementary information ("compléments d'informations" in French) for LA BOÎTE UNTEL, mfc-michèle didier publishes also COMPLÉMENTS D’INFORMATIONS [LA BOÎTE UNTEL], a work that is limited to 8 copies. It consists of an important series of archival elements, such as publications, invitations, postcards, posters and photographs. All these elements provide, together with LA BOÎTE UNTEL, a very complete archive of UNTEL's work.